New Zealand Mission Month 2, February, 2020
February Mission Blog
One of the things that has been very exciting about being in
New Zealand is learning to drive on the other side of the road than we do in
Canada. Fred drove when he was on his first mission here but it was a long time ago. However, he is always up for
a challenge and was excited to get behind the wheel. He has done quite well!
There are many roundabouts here which is an advantage because if you miss your
turn, you can just go around again and go out the second time! You do have to
be a little careful though of the cars coming in!
We did have an adventure one day on our way back to the
office from the bank. We got a little lost and, in trying to figure out where
we needed to go, Fred started driving the Canadian way! He went down the wrong
lane but luckily there weren’t any cars around and he was able to move back
into the correct lane quickly. We were definitely watched over that day!
Another thing about driving on the opposite side of the road
is that the steering wheel is on the opposite side of the car. We often get in
the wrong side of the car! And, once inside the car, the gearshift and
accessories are all on the opposite side. There is something here called the
“American Wave”. It happens when you try to put on your signal light and forget
that it is on the right side and, instead, you turn on the windshield wipers!
It’s very easy to do.
Our garage is also very narrow and we are lucky that Fred is
able to back our car up into that tight spot! His truck driving skills from his
youth are coming in handy!
Gas is also very expensive here. When we gassed up the car
for the first time on February 11, we were shocked that it cost $93 to fill a
Toyota corolla!
We have enjoyed being a part of the Tawa Ward. One of the
new families in the ward is from Brazil and they have hosted 2 Brazilian
Barbecues – one was for all the women in the ward on February 1. The wife, even
though she was 8 months pregnant, had fixed all the side dishes for the
barbeque and each of the sisters brought a salad or a dessert. The barbeque was
amazing – we had four kinds of meat – chicken drumsticks, pork, beef, and
sausages and they were all delicious.
On Feb. 22, the family did another barbecue for the men in
the ward. Fred went to the Elders Quorum BBQ in the afternoon and spent quite a
bit of time with the various members that were there. It was a great activity
but very windy.
We have many responsibilities in the office. Fred’s main
responsibilities are to do all the finances for the mission and he has also
become the Mission Technology Specialist because he knows more about technology
than anyone else in the office.
Kathy has several responsibilities. One is to do the
newsletter which she really enjoys. At the beginning of the month, she helped
Sister Brown with the February newsletter then, at the end of February, did the
March newsletter by herself. It is kind of similar to digital scrapbooking,
which is one of the things she loves to do!
Tuesday, February 4 was a very busy day at the mission
office. We had nine new missionaries arriving – six from the Auckland MTC and
three from the Provo MTC. It was also transfer day and so many of the
missionaries were flying, taking a bus, or being driven by car to their new
assignments. Sister Brown and I had made one mistake (which isn’t too bad
considering how many travel plans we had made) and had forgotten to book Elder
Van Der Walle’s second leg of his flight to Napier. He ended up in Wellington
and we had to book a quick second flight for him. But it all turned out well
and we are assuming everyone got to where they needed to be!
The day that the new missionaries arrive is called intake
day. They have forms to fill out and we copy their visas and passports and
drivers’ licenses. We try to provide a little bit of breakfast for them while
they are getting all of these things done. They also have a meeting with
President and Sister Soloai and the office staff were invited into that meeting
to introduce ourselves. It was really fun to get to meet the new missionaries
and welcome them. I’m sure they felt nervous like we did when we first arrived.
After their meeting, we provided lunch for them and the
outgoing missionaries (who were there for their course). Then we had lots of
work to do in the afternoon, to finish the documentation for all of the new
missionaries. We arrived a little bit early that day and didn’t leave until
about 4:30. It was a very busy day and a very good day!
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| Roses from the Lady Norwood Rose Garden |
Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday (February 5, 6, and 7) was a
couple’s conference in Wellington with all the senior couples in the New
Zealand Wellington Mission. All the couples on both islands travelled into
Wellington, were billeted with other senior couples, and enjoyed a few days
together with conference sessions, sightseeing, and lots of eating. Our Mission
President, President Soloai, is a seminary and Institute teacher and he
facilitated some wonderful conference sessions on Thursday and Friday mornings.
On Thursday afternoon, we did some sightseeing with some of the other couples.
We saw the Windy Wellington sign (yes, it is very windy here
in Wellington!), went to the Souvenir Factory, and walked through the
Wellington Botanical Gardens. There are many beautiful flowers there and I
especially enjoyed the fragrant garden where there were lots of really good
smelling flowers and the rose garden which was a huge garden filled with
beautiful roses. It was a wonderful place to go!
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| Some of the missionary couples at the "Windy Wellington" sign |
We had supper then about 8 o’clock, all the couples that
were available went to a ward party and dance for the Porirua ward. When we got
there, the missionary elders were doing the Hakka as part of the program and
then the young Sister missionaries did a Polynesian dance. There were a couple
of other numbers on the program and then it was time to eat. We weren’t really
very hungry because we just finished dinner at President and Sister Soloai’s
but we had a few things to eat and sat down with a Samoan couple from the ward.
Elder and Sister Harrison were also sitting with us. We visited with the Samoan
couple and then they gave Sister Harrison and I a beautiful bead necklace each
that they had been wearing. We were so surprised – it was so wonderful of them!
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That night at the Porirua ward party, we tried something
new. It was called Samoan Cocoa. It smelled like burnt chocolate but I quite
liked the taste of it. It tasted like a very dark chocolate, kind of like the
85% Lindt bars that I like. Fred wasn’t really partial to the taste of it.
On Saturday, February 8, Fred and I met with the Tawa ward
to do a service project of cleaning up 2 small private cemeteries. We met over
at the Porirua chapel and then split into two groups – one for each of the
cemeteries. Fred went with one of the groups and I went with the other group.
As I was cleaning up in the cemetery that I was assigned to, one of the sisters
drew my attention to one of the gravestones. The woman that was buried there
was a Leavitt and her husband had been buried in Beazer, Alberta. There was
lots of information on each of the headstones and this particular headstone
listed their children. One of their children was named Zealand. I became very
excited because Fred had mentioned that he had served his mission with a young
man named Zealand Leavitt. When Fred came over to meet me in the cemetery that
I was working in, I showed him the headstone. He was very excited to see that
the young man that he had served with was named on the headstone. It was fun to
have this connection with our country and with Fred’s former mission! Of all
the cemeteries that we could have worked in, it was interesting that we were
cleaning this one. One of the tender mercies of the Lord!
Monday, February 10 was the first day that we were working in the
office by ourselves without our trainers, Elder and Sister Brown. They have
been awesome and taught us a lot about the work we need to do. We sure haven’t
had the steep learning curve here that we had in Halifax. Perhaps it’s because
we had some training in the MTC or perhaps it’s because we had two weeks here
with the Browns who trained us. It also helps to know that the Browns are
available by telephone to answer our any questions that we have. (They are now
serving as the MLS Couple in the Hawkes’ Bay Zone.) We are still busy but we
have more confidence in what we’re doing. Today, Fred was able to go over some
things with Sister Soloai when she came into the office. While she was there,
Fred asked her about a missionary that had served at the same time as him when
he served his first mission, Elder Ora Kohe. Sister Soloai knew him well and
helped Fred connect with him. Fred was so happy to be able to chat with him and
they had a nice visit and promised to get together soon. Another one of the
tender mercies of the Lord!
On Wednesday, February 12, we went over to President and
sister Soloai‘s for dinner. A new senior couple, Elder & Sister Nom, were driving
into town and Sister Soloai had invited us over for dinner with them. They will
be going down to Gore on Friday and he will serve there as the branch president
for two years. They are a nice couple and they know the Soloais quite well. The
Noms are Maori and one of the dishes that Sister Soloai served was a whole
fish. Elder Nom asked if he could have the head which we were perfectly willing
to let him have. He really enjoyed it. It reminded Fred of the Maoris who
served fish head when he was on his first mission!
On Saturday, February 15, we picked up Elder and Sister
Mansfield, the other couple that work in the office, and drove to the Mount
Victoria Lookout. When Fred was on his previous mission here, that was one of
the first places that he went with his Mission President and the other new
missionaries that had arrived. The road going up to the top of the mountain was
quite skinny and winding and there were a few times when we wondered if we were
going to hit another car especially because there were cars parked on the side
of the road on the way up!
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| The city of Wellington from Mount Victoria |
But we made it safely and parked. The views over the
harbour were very spectacular. We were so lucky to have a clear and calm day
and we could see the vista of the whole bay and area. After looking out over
the bay, we climbed up a few more stairs and were at the very top of Mount
Victoria and could look in every direction. We could see the area where the
mission office was, the airport, and the water. It was really fun to look out
over the area. It also helped us get a little more oriented as to where things
were.
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| Kathy and Sister Mansfield |
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| Elder Mansfield with Fred |
When we were at the top, Fred noticed the ocean directly
down one of the roads that we go down when we go to the bank. He really wanted
to go down to the water, so after we finished at the top, we headed down to the
ocean front and found a parking spot so that we could go and walk along the
beach. Fred even rolled up his pants and waded into the water a little. It was
pretty cool – in more ways than one!
After we left the beach, we drove to an Underground Market,
where we had some lunch and looked at the vendors there. I bought a few cards
and a mirror for my purse. On the way back to the car, we got some ice cream
cones (Fred didn’t have one) and decided to go through part of the Te Papa Museum.
There was one exhibit about a war between the Australians and New Zealanders
fighting against the Turks who had invaded Australia. There were figures of
some of the soldiers that were about three times the size of the actual
soldiers depicting some of the events of the war. They were so lifelike! They
were made by the New Zealand company who also made the figures for Lord of the
Rings and Avatar. War is so sad but these brave men did help to fight off the
invaders in Australia and New Zealand.
Thursday, February 20 - When we got home from the office,
Fred and I went for a walk. We have been trying to find a nice place to go
walking and today we discovered Grasslees Reserve. It was so nice! There was a
playground there and some picnic tables and a couple of cute bridges to walk
across in a little bit of a walking path. Over to one side of the reserve was
the Tawa Pool. We enjoyed spending a few minutes there and then we decided we
better walk home.
Sister Soloai had phoned us today and asked us if we wanted
to go over to Rachel’s home (Rachel cooks for the mission home) for a going
away dinner for Elder Hair. He has been here the last two weeks with his
parents showing them around New Zealand before they take him home. We followed
President and Sister Soloai up to Rachel‘s home. It was in a beautiful area on
the outskirts of Wellington called Whitby. We drove along the ocean and it was
a little bit hair-raising as we were right close to the ocean and there were
very few guardrails along there! But the view was beautiful and we drove into a
beautiful area with large homes. Rachel had a beautiful home there and she had
made a gorgeous dinner with so many choices, as she always does. We enjoyed
dinner and then she served Pavlova for dessert. It is a traditional New Zealand
dish made with meringue and lots of whipped cream and berries. It was
delicious!
Friday, February 21- About 8:30, Bishop Chen came into the
office. When we had arrived at the office yesterday, our paper cutter was gone
and the office looked like someone had been there. The doors to the cupboards
were open and someone had been eating Fred‘s little boxes of raisins and had
thrown the boxes into Elder Mansfield’s garbage. Elder Mansfield never eats
raisins so he knew that someone had been sitting at his desk. I had also had
trouble finding Elder Klink’s passport and his file, but that mystery was
solved when I found out that his legal last name was Gibbons and his passport
and file were filed under that name. Bishop Chen spent quite a bit of time
going through the tapes of the security cameras to see who had been in the
office and in the church building. He finally located the paper cutter in the
Relief Society room tucked behind some of the chairs. I guess someone had borrowed
it and not put it back. I was happy to have it again because I use it quite a
bit. And, as for someone being in our office, we decided it was probably
someone with the key using one of the computers. We were happy that all of our
mysteries were solved by Detective Sherlock Chen (Bishop Chen of the Tawa
Ward)!
Favorite Fish & Chips Place – Crumbed fish at Porirua
Seafood. One night, we decided to go to Porirua Seafood to get some fish and
chips. We had heard that they made really good fish and chips. We tried their
crumbed fish and their battered fish and decided that we love their crumbled
fish!
Sunday, February 23 - There was a huge wind and rain storm
last night. It was blowing so hard and raining so hard that it woke Kathy up,
which is really hard to do because usually I’m quite a heavy sleeper. The rain
storm continued after we got up in the morning and it was still raining a
little when we got to church. But by the time church was over it had stopped
and it became quite sunny and warm as the day went on. What a change!
That night during dinner, we got a text from Sister Soloai
asking if we were coming to the Samoan fireside tonight. We didn’t know
anything about it so we asked where it was and when it was. She said it was at
6:30 and Fred looked up the chapel on his map. We hurriedly finished supper,
put the food away, and hurried over to the fire side. We got there about 20
after six so we thought we were early, but it had started at 6 o’clock so we
actually walked in late and there were no seats at the back so we had to walk
up to the front. It was a really good fire side. A brother and a sister from
the same family were going on missions – one to Samoa and one to the
Philippines. We got there after the sister had already spoken and the brother was
in the middle of his talk. After he gave his talk, he sang a beautiful song.
Often in the Samoan Wards, the speakers will sing after they speak. I’m glad
that I’m not assigned to the Samoan Ward!
After the meeting, we went and had some refreshments and there
were three tables full of food. Fred and I just had some fruit but there were
many more choices. The Samoans always have lots of food at their functions!
They are a wonderful and loving people.
On Fri. February 28, Tom and Carolin Pisko, friends of ours
from Calgary, came and spent the weekend with us. We had a wonderful time and
will share that in our March blog.
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| More Roses in the Lady Norwood Rose Garden |
